Michael ChristonThe ads are everywhere, TV, YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, there was no escaping the marketing of Noom. But what the hell is it? Ok, it’s a weight loss product, but is the hoopla surrounding it just hype?
Only one thing for it. Click the ad and disappear down the rabbit hole…
So here I am several weeks later …and already quite a few kilos lighter!
But let us first rewind the clock to a time when I was a slender shadow of my current self…
I was a mere slip of a guy
I got married in 1995, and as proven by photos of the time, I was thin, just ten-and-a-half stone (67kgs). However, as I grew older and my mental health deteriorated, my weight gradually increased until I was inspired to do something about it.
[I say ‘inspired’… As I will discuss in a moment it wasn’t the usual ‘inspiration’ of “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fattest of them all?” – It was more an intellectual decision, sparked by my doctor, my blood pressure, my defunct knees straining under the weight, etc, etc]
Like so many before me, I was ‘inspired’ MANY times over…and I lost weight, then gained it all back, time and time again. Worse, I was gradually getting heavier.
When I tried Noom I was at my all-time heaviest, eighteen stone (114kg).
Those little (large) comments
After a while, you start to notice the mannerisms and little comments, those subtle gestures pointing towards the elephant in the room …me. I was that large elephant.
- “Alright Big Man, how’s it going?”
- “You’ll love it Mikey, free sweets”
- “I bet you like that, Michael” [while nodding towards my large stomach]
- “I don’t want to waste this, you finish it Mikey” [as my friend shovels the remainder of their meal onto my plate]
Clearly, I was not simply Michael, I was Michael-the-big-guy, the fat one. It’s quite a moment when that finally dawns on you.
Now you may think, ‘well, surely that was obvious when you looked in the mirror’ …well yes, but only partly. I see what others see but with a form of detachment. There is indeed a big guy in the mirror, but I have little emotional connection.
In the same way I struggle to know myself, I have little or no self-image.
A person might look in the mirror and say to his or herself, “I’ve put on some weight, I need to lose a few pounds” and then, with a burst of self-motivation, act accordingly.
However… if you subtract ‘self’ from that equation, it becomes an altogether different proposition.
In simple terms, I never had that reaction.
So why Noom?
FACT: The day I clicked the Noom ad and followed the induction process was quite a turning point.
Noom’s big USP (Unique Selling Point) is psychology or as they put it “Psychology is the key to lasting change”. Well, for the last 20 years my ‘unique angle’ for my business work has been …psychology too!
So when I clicked the ad it was with a professional curiosity – and in next to no time I was marvelling at the cleverness of the marketing process … “Wow, these guys are good, this is really smart stuff”.
I kept clicking and answering the questions, smiling the whole time, because the ongoing feedback from the marketing was becoming more and more attuned to my particular needs.
(Visit Noom and see for yourself… The process is both enlightening and entertaining – and if you do follow through like me, and sign up for Noom, that link will get you 20% off too.)
So… here I am… Working day by day through my personalised Noom plan, and yes there’s been ups and downs, but Noom even caters for those, so overall it’s been and still is a very rewarding experience.
I’ll talk more about the program and my progress in another post, but for now… The Big Man went to the Noom and he’s never coming back again.